Bound Together
by foxtrot run
Summary: Draco and Hermione are bound together by two Slytherins as a joke. They already have feeling for one another but will they get together? Not the best summary but please read anyway, DMHG.. CHAPTER 8 UP
1. Chapter 1

"Oi, Vince," sniggered Goyle from behind the thick, ancient book he had been skimming through. His best friend, Vincent Crabbe, turned from the bookshelf he'd been examining, his mouth slightly open and his eyes alight with dull curiosity.

"What?" He came to stand behind the plush library chair where his friend was curled up and looked over his broad shoulder into the yellowing pages, his eyes following the thick finger to the spell. "A binding spell?"

"Yeah," replied Goyle enthusiastically. "It's like a bonding spell. You cast it on someone and the first person they touch is bound to them."

Crabbe paused for a moment, thinking. "What do you mean; bound?"

Goyle squinted at the page. "Well, the two people who are bound can't go too far away from each other. Like, if they go too far apart, they feel this need to go back together again. And over time, it gets tighter so they need to get closer to each other."

"Sounds funny," smirked Crabbe. "Is it hard to do?"

"Nah. You've just got to say this thing."

"We've got potions next, don't we?"

"Yeah…"

Crabbe's smirk turned into a wide grin. "Draco's in our potions class. Wouldn't it be funny to do it to him?"

Goyle grinned up at the large figure of his friend. "Yeah."

"Instructions and ingredients on the board. You have," Snape glanced at the pocket watch that lay on his classroom desk, "twenty minutes. Go!"

A flurry of activity began on the potions professor's last word as students started to gather equipment and ingredients for the potion of the lesson.

Crabbe and Goyle assembled everything as quickly as they could and grinned at each other as an oblivious Draco Malfoy began to heat the almond oil and dragon eggshell in his cauldron while a bored-looking Blaise Zabini looked on.

"Should we get him bound to Blaise?" whispered Crabbe to Goyle, barely able to contain his excitement at this practical joke they'd been planning since their study period in the library.

Goyle nodded eagerly and arranged his robes around his wand so that only the tip was showing through his sleeve. He pointed the tip at the blond Slytherin and muttered the words from the book, pleased when a barely opaque stream of magic shot towards the target and hit him on his left shoulder. The two large boys nodded at each other as Malfoy absent-mindedly rubbed his shoulder then turned back to the cauldron.

Draco absent-mindedly rubbed his shoulder then looked to see how the potion was progressing. It was now a delicate shade of lilac and smelt faintly of rainwater, just as Snape had explained in the scrawled instructions on the blackboard. From then on, the potion just needed simple work so he left it to Zabini who was gazing aimlessly into the depths of the cauldron, gathered the various beakers he's dirtied while mixing various things and collecting ingredients and headed towards the sink. His heart leapt into his throat as he saw Hermione Granger, one of Potter's friends, also headed towards the sink. Quickly ducking his head down and pretending not to have seen his secret love, Draco continued towards the sink until a bump brought his head up again.

"Watch it, Malfoy!" she gasped as a streak of something green spread across the front of her robes as a result of the head-on collision she'd just had with the boy. Draco stepped back quickly, almost tripping on another student.

He wanted so badly to apologize and wipe down the front of her robes but instead he forced out his standard reply, twisting his face into a sneer, scared that she would recognize his feelings for her. "Sod off, Mudblood."

It hurt him to say that word but he knew that if he didn't the other Slytherins would suspect something and his father would eventually find out and that would not do; Malfoys did not communicate willingly with mudbloods, after all, or so he had been taught.

Forcing back a sigh as Hermione shot daggers at him with those deep eyes of hers and hurried back to Potter and that stupid boy, Weasley, Draco dumped his glassware into the sink and began to carefully rinse it out, completely unaware, apart from a slight sense of discomfort, of the binding spell that now bound Hermione to him and the two rather large boys who guffawed behind his back at what they had done.

"… and then… and then…" Ron tried to finish but the laughter that interrupted his every sentence and left him breathless wouldn't allow it.

"And then what, Ron?" Harry asked, a grin spreading across his face as he leaned forwards in his armchair, the flaring fire in the Gryffindor common room grate illuminating his features.

"And then… he…" the red-head once again collapsed in giggles, squirming in his own chair as Harry began to join in with Hermione watching them with vague amusement as she settled a large volume of _'Durmstrang through the Ages' _on her knees. The book had been a gift that her dear friend, Viktor Krum, had sent her for her fifteenth birthday just weeks ago.

Out of curiosity, she flipped to the back of the book where the history of Durmstrang was the most recent. Sure enough, a photograph of Viktor was printed just a few pages before the end with a paragraph about his achievements that did his school proud. She sighed as he grinned and winked from the page, his fur cloak gently moving in the breeze. If only he could have stayed at Hogwarts with her. She missed the intimate companionship of a boyfriend. Of course she had Ron and Harry but it just wasn't the same. Ron blurted out the remainder of the sentence that he had been attempting for the last fifteen minutes and both boys burst out in a renewed round of laughter. Smiling fondly, she closed the book and observed them for a moment before standing.

"I'm going to bed," she announced and the boys settled down for a moment to each smile and bid her goodnight before Ron choked out another joke and the two were once again wriggling in their seats, overcome with mirth.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **Nope, I'm not J.K. Rowling, I don't own Harry Potter or anything except the plot

_Lucius towered over him, a slow grin spreading across his face as Draco sunk to the ground, terrified of what plans his father had for him. The taller man raised his wand._

"_You're weak, Draco, so very weak. You need to be taught a lesson," he sneered and the boy cowered, curling himself up into a ball on the rough wooden floorboards, desperately wishing for a saviour. A sudden image of Hermione flashed before his eyes and he almost cried as he thought how he'd never see her again, never tell her how he felt._

_Hermione clapped her hands in delight as she watched Harry soar over the trees on his broom with Ron hot on his tail. They were truly fantastic, and she had the show all to herself as she was the only one who stood by Hagrid's hut, watching the boys as they flew effortlessly over the Forbidden Forest and around the lake. Ron had just completed a successful dive when she felt a tendril of terror reach out and grasp her heart. The boys above her seemed just fine; they flew around without a care in the world but as the feeling increased, filling her body she couldn't help but know that something was terribly, terribly wrong. She turned from the boys and instead of seeing the looming castle she found a small, shabby-looking house in its place. An image suddenly flashed before her eyes and a scream echoed through her. But it wasn't her scream. It was the scream of Draco Malfoy. She began to run as thousands of emotions welled up inside her, spurring her on as she seemed to know that if she couldn't find the boy and stop his suffering, she would go down with him._

_Draco whimpered, trying to shrink away from his father, dissolve into the floorboards, do _anything _to get away but Lucius just continued to point the wand and move ever closer. _

"_Crucio," the man whispered and a jet of light surrounded Draco, torturing him with excruciating pain. He felt himself being thrown around as the pain grew stronger and he cried out, screamed for all he was worth while all the while, the feelings increased._

"_Expelliarmus!" a voice, a wonderfully familiar voice, cried suddenly and the pain stopped. He turned his head and there, in the doorway of the grey room stood none other than his love, Hermione Granger. "Stupify! Petrificus Totalus!" _

_Lucius fell to the ground, stupefied and bound._

_Draco's body ached but he found the strength to drag himself towards Hermione who hesitantly moved to him. She knelt down beside him and wiped the sweat from his cheeks with her cool hands as he gazed up at her, somewhat shocked. _

"_Why am I helping you?" she whispered, more to herself than anyone else as she smoothed back his white-blond hair from his trembling forehead. _

"_Please don't hate me anymore?" Draco replied with a question of his own, easing himself up so that he sat cross-legged in front of her. _

"_I don't hate you, I don't think. You've always been the one that's hated me. You call me Mudblood," she frowned at him and seemed to move away slightly, her hand coming to rest on her knee._

"_I'm sorry," he said and he meant it with all of his heart. Hermione's eyes seemed to brighten and all traces of hatred were gone, leaving only something that he liked to think was love._

"_But this is just a dream, isn't it? It's just a dream."_

_Draco tentatively reached out and embraced the girl who had saved him and held her close until he felt her own arms close around his neck and her head bury itself in his chest._

"_If it is just a dream," he said, stroking back her hair, "then I never want to wake up."_

Draco opened his eyes in the darkness and groaned. He'd never wanted the dream to end, never wanted Hermione to leave him, but now he was energized with no chance of going back to sleep. With a sigh, he rolled out of bed and pulled a jumper on over his pajamas then snuck out of the Slytherin common room into the silent corridor leading from the dungeons.

It was about two o'clock, he decided; nobody would be awake for a log time so he made for the kitchens, planning on making himself some tea. The castle seemed oddly deserted at night and every creak made him spin as images of his father in the dream came back to him. Trying to wash that pale face from his mind as he neared the kitchen, Draco thought of Hermione and her beautiful, if rather curly, long, brown hair, her deep brown eyes that seemed to hold and comfort him and her voice, that warm voice that seemed to save him in his thoughts and dreams every time. Tickling the green pear on the portrait covering the doorway, he stepped into the kitchen and headed to the small kettle in the corner that seemed to already be boiling. Taking a mug and a teabag from a stack in a nearby cupboard, Draco made himself some strong black tea and perched himself on a stool at one of the huge tables that spread across the length of the room which was, he knew, directly below the Great Hall. It was rather amazing, the happening of the castle, he thought, wrapping his hands around the warm mug and breathing in the warm tea smell. He briefly wondered why Peeves the poltergeist hadn't been hanging around the dungeons when he'd made his escape to the kitchens when a small noise brought his attention to the portrait that was swinging open for the second time that night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Nope, I'm still not JKR and I still don't own anything much of this

Hermione tried to shift her thoughts from the dream of Draco to the upcoming Quidditch match but with no success. His wide grey eyes had been haunting her ever since she had climbed out of bed and made for the kitchen and they still gazed at her as she stepped in side the warm room beyond the portrait bearing fruit.

"Draco," she choked as she recognized the boy who was perched by one of the large tables on a stool. He regarded her with those wide eyes.

"Hermione? Why are you down here?"

She quickly recovered from the shock and made for the kettle. "I had a dream and then I couldn't get back to sleep so I thought I'd come and get some tea." She paused. "Why am I telling you this?"

"I don't know," he muttered, trying to force down the blush that came to his cheeks when she mentioned a dream. His own dream was still vivid in his mind and, with its subject standing just meters away, it didn't seem likely that it would be going anytime soon.

She seemed to accept this and continued on to make herself some tea then hesitantly sat down a few seats away from him, shivering happily as her own hands wrapped around the mug as she took a sip, spreading warmth down her body.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Draco spoke again. "What was your dream about? I had one too."

Hermione spontaneously decided that she'd tell her classmate a rough outline of the dream. After all, what could he do?

"Ron and Harry were flying on their brooms over the forest but then I started to feel weird and when I turned around, there was a little house instead of the castle. I went in and there was a man there, torturing…" she paused, "someone. I'm not sure who they were," she added quickly. "I managed to tie up the man and then… um… I woke up."

"In my dream, I was the one being tortured," Draco said. He was gazing absent-mindedly at a picture on the wall of a large, red apple.

Hermione shifted on her stool. It seemed that she and Draco could have been in the same dream but no, that was impossible. Two people couldn't be in the same dream unless they were bound or bonded and she definitely was not bound to Draco.

"Why are you being nice to me?" she asked quietly in the silence.

Draco tore his gaze from the apple to look at her, showing a faint expression of surprise. "Because… I… I have to go," he finished, almost immediately cursing himself for not just coming out and stating his feelings. He downed the remained of his tea, rinsed out the mug in a nearby sink and made for the portrait hole. As he was stepping out into the corridor, he turned to see her looking at him, frowning slightly as if concentrating and he whispered before ducking out and fleeing to his bed, not even sure if she'd hear him, "Please don't hate me anymore?"

"What're you looking at, 'Mione?" a voice broke Hermione's thoughts and she shifted her gaze from the Slytherin table back to Ron who was now peering at her from over his bowl of porridge.

"Huh?" she replied, looking down at the half-eaten piece of toast on her plate. "Um, nothing."

"You're awfully quiet this morning. Are you sure you got enough sleep?" Harry now took his attention away from his own toast and frowned at her.

"I'm fine, Harry." She pointedly picked up the toast and began the chew at the corner half-heartedly.

In reality, her every thought was plagued with Draco Malfoy. Everywhere she looked, her gaze was always drawn back to him and sometimes she was even surprised to find him looking straight back at her. Of course, they both quickly looked away. Thoughts about classes and homework drifted back to the blond boy and even when she started to make plans to write a letter home, his grey eyes formed in her mind, begging her to save him.

Abruptly she stood and climbed off the bench.

"Hermione?" the boys looked up at her, breaking off their conversation.

"I… I've got to get something. I'll see you in potions," she stammered her excuse and, abandoning the toast, hurried out of the Great Hall.

In the Entrance Hall, she paced back and forth in front of the doors to the outside world. It seemed that she couldn't escape from Draco's gaze and she wasn't sure that she wanted to. Forcing her legs to stop, she mentally shook herself. What was she doing? Sure, maybe newfound feelings for her enemy had made themselves noticed but it didn't mean that she had to go crazy.

She took a deep breath as she made her way outside and sat on the top of the stone stairs leading out to the grounds.

_Please don't hate me anymore?_

He'd whispered those words last night; twice it seemed. All traces of venom and hatred were gone leaving only a bare soul open to her.

She made a groaning noise as she buried her face in her knees.

Harry and Ron expected her to hate Draco with all of her being but right now, after last night, she couldn't find anything like that in her, only some strange feeling that made her heart beat faster and her stomach flip. She didn't have a clue what this meant except that now a glance from the boy made her knees weak as jelly and her thoughts muddle.

"Hermione?"

Hermione turned to find, to her relief, Ginny standing behind her. When the red-haired girl confirmed her guess, she came and sat down next to her friend.

"What's up? The boys said you left breakfast early."

"Um, yeah." Suddenly she had an idea. "Ginny? Have you ever had this weird kind of feeling? Like every time this particular person looks at you your legs go all wobbly and you can't think straight. And your heart speeds up. And your stomach starts to flip?"

A slow grin was spreading across the younger girl's face. "Yes."

Hermione widened her eyes in amazement, knowing that Ginny could surely give her the answer. "Really? What is it then?"

"Love, Hermione. I think you're in love with some very lucky guy. Who is it then?" Ginny was grinning ear-to-ear now but Hermione frowned. She couldn't possibly be in love, it just wasn't right. She shook her head.

"No, I can't be in love with _him_."

"Who is it?" Ginny's grin was fading and now she looked a bit concerned. "I promise I can help, 'Mione, just tell me who."

"It's Draco Malfoy," she whispered and as soon as she'd said his name, she knew that Ginny was right.

**A/N:** Thanks to eveyone who's still reading! I hope you're enjoying this : ) Also, sorry for the short chapters. This is my first fic so I'm still trying to figure out how to space everything out. Thanks again for reading! Review if you'd like to make my happy: ) : )


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **Don't own HP or anything except the plot.

As soon as Hermione had left the Great Hall, Draco felt a huge sense of loss. He had an urge to run after her and hold her like he had in his dream but he knew that it probably wouldn't be accepted as before. Crabbe and Goyle watched him carefully as he fiddled with his fork, making a series of small holes in his scrambled eggs before nervously eating a small forkful and swallowing without chewing as he looked up quickly again to check whether the girl had reentered.

"Careful mate or you'll choke," Zabini laughed as Draco spluttered and coughed as his food went down the wrong way.

His eyes watering, Draco took a sip of pumpkin juice then stood and exited much the way Hermione had. Once outside the hall, he looked around, his eyes finally falling on the figures of two girls perched outside on the front steps of the castle, talking. The one he recognised as Hermione appeared to be quite upset about something and was nervously fiddling with the hem of her robes.

He didn't know how long he stood there watching them. It could have been minutes or hours but he didn't care as long as she was safely within his gaze where he could protect her if need be. It seemed that the two girls didn't even notice that he'd been standing there until the rest of the students began to file out of the Great Hall, brushing past him like he was nothing more than a ghost, and the two boys, Potter and Weasley called out to the girls.

"Oi, Hermione!" Weasley yelled as they headed towards them. The girls looked up. The redhead immediately smiled at the sight of Potter but Hermione looked straight past her friends to where Draco stood. Their eyes locked. A tingle ran down Draco's spine and his stomach did somersaults until she finally broke the contact and turned to offer a weak smile to her friends as they sat down on the stairs.

Draco turned reluctantly away from the girl that plagued his mind and set off behind a gang of first year Slytherins for his dorm.

Ginny laughed pointedly as Ron cracked yet another joke. They were trying so hard to involve Hermione, to cheer her up but as soon as she lost sight of Draco in the mass of students migrating to the dungeons, she could only think of him and a strange sensation deep inside of her seemed to be pulling her towards him.

Soon her three friends stopped talking and just gazed at her, confused.

"What's up, Hermione?" Ron finally asked. Hermione looked at him.

"Um, nothing."

"I think you should tell them," Ginny sighed. The younger girl bit her lip as her brother swung a look at her.

"Tell us what?" chimed in Harry, shuffling in closer, green eyes glittering with curiosity.

Ron frowned. "Ginny? What's going on?"

"Hermione…" Ginny prompted, nudging her with a soft hand.

"What's going on?"

"Is something wrong?"

"It might help…"

"Hermione?"

Hermione stood in frustration. She just needed to be alone. She did dearly love the three teens that sat around her, concern expressed plainly in their eyes and faces, but she just needed to be by herself to think, or not think, about her predicament.

"I have to go," she said bluntly and turned, gathering her bag and starting out towards her potions classroom, pausing as she realised that she'd just used the same excuse on her friends that Draco had used on her in the kitchen that night.

The dungeon classroom was deserted so Draco slowly, so as not to disturb the peace, pushed open the door and settled into the corner furthest from the entrance with his arms spread out on the desk.

It was good to be away from the Slytherins; while they were his friends, their sneers and sneakiness was not appreciated at this time and a lot of them seemed to be all of a sudden paying him unwanted attention, especially Crabbe and Goyle who seemed to think that he was incredibly funny, even when he wasn't doing anything at all.

Maybe they knew about the girl.

No, he shook his head, banishing the thought, how could they possibly know that he had fallen for the one he was supposed to hate; one of Potter's sidekicks, and a mudblood at that?

He knew that he should just pretend that the dream and the night in the kitchen had never happened. He should just ignore her heavenly presence in the Great Hall, in his classes, in the library, halls and grounds. Her voice should mean no more to him that the hoot of a barn owl and her eyes, those deep, deep eyes, should be just as significant in his mind as a muddy puddle.

He should hate her, but oh how he wished that he could hold her just once more, speak to her quietly over a mug of steaming tea, just _see_ her every moment of every day.

A dull thud echoed around the damp room as he dropped his head onto the desk. It was no good; Hermione Granger was firmly lodged in his mind and had no intention of leaving anytime soon.

Faint muttering sounds reached his ears, growing louder by the second until the door to the dungeon swung open with an almighty creak, slammed shut and the scraping of stool legs on stone floor signaled the entry of another.

A gasp.

"Draco…" she breathed.

He looked up. "Hermione."

She had dumped her books onto a desk on the other side of the room, about two rows back from his. Her cheeks blushed pink as their eyes caught and she quickly broke the gaze, looking down at the desk.

"Where's Potter?" Draco finally said, taking in the girl's flushed cheeks and wide brown eyes.

"I don't know," she sighed, glancing up at him. "They were interrogating me so I left."

"Interrogating you? What about?"

She looked up in surprise, answering quickly. "Nothing."

"It must have been something," he prompted, his voice softening into an understanding tone that Hermione had never heard with him before. "Was it anything important?"

Hermione maintained the gaze that the two were exchanging. "Um, sort of."

He opened his mouth to speak again when the door burst open and Potter and the rest of the Gryffindors streamed in, chatting animatedly. Weasley immediately came to sit with Hermione, shooting Draco a look of distrust and hate while Draco himself allowed himself a final glance at the girl who held his heart and mind before fixing his attention on the entering Professor Snape.

**A/N: **Thanks for making it this far! Please read and review! I thank you in advance : )


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione sighed in satisfaction as she laid the completed transfiguration essay flat on the library table, her cursive neatly set into straight rows. It had taken almost all of her mental strength to do her homework instead of think about Draco but now that it was done, she could feel the face that she'd seen since that night in the kitchen recede further back into her mind. Ron glanced up at the noise.

"Are you finished?"

"Yes but I still have some things to do on my arithmancy work. Do you need help?"

Ron smiled hopefully at her. "Yeah. I've got the introduction okay but I really can't think of how to structure it."

Hermione was impressed at his language. She hadn't even known that Ron had known the words 'structure' and 'introduction' before. Taking the parchment that her friend held out, she also noticed that what he had written was indeed okay. In fact, she could even make sense of what he was trying to say.

"This is good Ron. Maybe if you just went on to explain the origins in the first paragraph and techniques in the second, you could just take it from there."

Smiling as he took back the parchment, Ron thanked his friend.

Hermione wondered how he could have changed so dramatically in just a few hours then noticed that Harry had also been uncharacteristically quiet throughout their study session. Now his head was bent over his work to the extent that his black hair almost brushed the surface of the desk. He seemed to be right into his work so she quickly gathered her things into her bag and excused herself to go to bed for it as getting late.

Only a few students lurked around the halls now and most of those were heading in small groups towards the four dormitory points around the school. She'd just brushed past a weary-looking group of Ravenclaws when she almost ran into someone, causing her to leap back in surprise.

"Oh, sorry Hermione!" the boy gasped, regaining his composure as she straightened her robe.

"It's okay, Dean. I wasn't watching where I was going either. Just lost in thought," she smiled at her fellow Gryffindor. "Why are you down here? It's almost curfew."

"Oh," Dean grinned, running a hand through his short hair, "I was coming down to fetch Ron; his sister wanted him for something and I need to get a book out from the library anyway so I said I'd go down to get him."

"Okay. See you," Hermione gave him a small wave and set off again, almost immediately running into another boy.

However this one didn't speak. He just looked down at her with sad, grey eyes and ducked his head down as he hurried off towards the dungeons, leaving Hermione to watch after him.

"You did _what_?" cried Blaise, staring at the two rather large Slytherins. His posture suggested anger but only strangled laughter erupted from his lips as Crabbe and Goyle looked on in shock. "You two," he chuckled in a most un-Slytherin like fashion as he attempted to regain his composure, "are brilliant!"

The two boys he addressed smirked at each other.

Blaise, still out of breath, dropped onto the couch across from the other two boys. "So, when does the charm become ineffective?"

Goyle took a deep breath, happy to be able to supply his leader with information. "It'll only stop working when they say they love each other."

"Yeah," piped up Crabbe. "It's one of those spells that they used to use to bring people together. You know, betrothed people." He stretched out the word 'betrothed' and grinned as if he'd just told the Italian the meaning of life.

Goyle nodded eagerly in agreement. "It said so in the book."

"Ha!" Blaise grinned. So Draco would eventually have to tell that mudblood nerd that he loved her -and mean it- or be bound to her forever… or at least until they found out that they'd been bound and undid it or cast a powerful spell that would shatter the weak magic.

The three boys were still smirking and whispering when Draco entered the common room.

Ever since the run in with Hermione two days ago, he had seen little of her and the urge to be near to her was growing stronger by the minute.

Fighting the urge to dash back outside into the deserted coolness of the halls, Draco flopped onto the couch beside Blaise and surveyed the guilty scene in front of him.

Both Crabbe and Goyle were exchanging obvious glances and sneaking looks at him while the third boy, Blaise, regarded him with cool interest.

"It's a bit late for you to be up and about, Draco," he smirked.

"Mmm," he answered. "What's going on?"

"Nothing!" Crabbe reassured him, far too quickly to be innocent.

"Zabini?"

"I'm afraid Vincent is right, Draco. It has been a rather uneventful evening. However, I heard that that blood traitor, Weasley, is going to ask out that mudblood, Granger."

Blaise smirked as slow horror dawned on Draco's face.

Quickly replacing his blank expression, Draco stood and headed towards his dormitory, throwing a quick wave over his shoulder in means of goodbyes.

**A/N: **Sorry it's a bit of a short chapter. Hope you like it! Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** Nope... still not JK Rowling. Still don't own HP or anything

He knew something was going on. That look in her eyes… It had to mean _something_. As he lay in bed, Draco mentally slapped himself for jumping to conclusions; she couldn't possibly like him. This was Hermione, Potter's best friend, Weasley's potential girlfriend and long-time member of the school-wide famous Golden Trio; she was too good for him.

A smile crept onto his lips as her face brought itself into his thoughts. He tried to push it out; she couldn't possibly feel for him, but oh! The way she had looked at him! And that smile! What he would give to see that smile again!

His insides melted and he felt himself giving into his heart.

After all, there must be _some _way to make her like him.

_"Hermione!" he shouted again, but there was no reply. The grounds remained flat and green and empty but he knew that she was nearby; he could feel it._

_He yelled again but to no avail. She wasn't coming closer._

_He slumped down against a tree and peered up at Hogwarts, looming in all its mysterious beauty against a backdrop of fantastical mountains and greenery._

_She watched him from behind a great oak on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Her insides wrestled over her response to the boy's obvious distress at not being able to find her._

_"He wants to see me," she told herself. "He's looking for me. That means something, doesn't it?"_

_Her mind said no but her heart disagreed. It begged her to go to the boy by the tree._

_"But what if he's just using me?" she argued fiercely._

_But no, he wouldn't do that. The emotions she could feel radiating from him and the look on his face were all too sincere for her to even contemplate that his intentions were anything but good_

_Her stomach completed a tumble turn as Draco stood reluctantly in defeat._

_'Go' whispered her heart, and she went to him._

_"Draco."_

_The voice stopped him, mid-step. It was her voice._

_He turned slowly, scared that if he made any sudden moves he would scare her away, like a rabbit. And there she was._

_Her dark hair fell in loose ringlets to her waist, contrasting beautifully with the white dress that fell over her curves like water washes over a dolphin; she was indeed the most beautiful thing he'd seen in all of his fifteen years._

_"Hermione."_

_He took a step towards her; unsure of how she would react to the display of affection he longed to show her. An expression that he couldn't quite comprehend flitted across her features and suddenly he was knocked back onto the grass, the girl in white clinging to him like she'd never let go; not that he ever wanted her to._

_The sudden rush of emotions hit Hermione with the force of a bullet train. She would never have believed that in just a few weeks, she and her secret crush for the past couple of months, Draco Malfoy, could have developed some kind of secret touch-and-go relationship but here she was, her face buried in his white-clad chest and her arms holding him to her with every ounce of strength she possessed._

_Even if it was just a dream, she wasn't sure if she would ever want to wake up to face reality._

_She breathed him in until she felt dizzy, savouring every second, wishing that they could stay, bound together in a tight embrace forever but knowing that it wouldn't last._

_A gentle breeze rippled the light fabric of her dress as she looked up. Draco looked drowsy with content, his grey eyes smiling as he gazed at her. She reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair from his face, her fingers brushing against his strangely soft cheek. Letting it linger, she pondered over how strange it was that the boy who normally looked so tough and hard, could have such loving eyes and soft skin._

_Hands found their way down to her waist as she pulled herself up so that she was almost face-to-face with Draco, leaning down to him._

_"I love you, Hermione," he whispered as they grew nearer and nearer then…_

_"It's the mudblood!" a cruel voice echoed through him and he was shocked into a sitting position, Hermione curling easily by his side._

_"Leave us alone, Malfoy!" she yelled at him, pulling her wand from the robes that seemed to have replaced the dress. He looked down to see his own robes and didn't hesitate to pull out his own wand, springing to his feet and aiming at his father._

_Lucius lazily drew his wand and pointed it towards the two teenagers who stared back at him in resentment._

_"Why should I, you stupid little mudblood? After all, that is my son that you are trying to protect," Lucius Malfoy sneered._

_"Last time I checked, I seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it!" Hermione retorted haughtily, shuffling closer to Draco._

_The smirk disappeared from the pale face and Draco looked on with horror as his father glared at the girl, his wand pointing quite steadily at her head._

_"I could kill you, you know. It would give me oh so much pleasure to watch you die."_

_Draco looked at her, terror flooding him as he realised how serious she was. Hate flashed across her face and the grip on her wand tightened visibly. Lucius surely would not hesitate to kill her the moment he'd had enough._

_"Then you are just a heartless killer aren't you? No wonder your own wife is scared of you."_

_It happened; Lucius cracked._

_"Avada Kedavr-"_

Hermione sat up, gasping for air. With a trembling hand she swept back her hair from her sweaty forehead and tried to breathe deeply, now satisfied that she was not dead and was, in fact, alive in the darkness of the silent dormitory, many, many miles away from Draco's father and that wand that had almost killed her.

In a bout of sudden fury she rolled out of bed and, pulling on a robe over her pajamas, stormed out of the Gryffindor tower and out into the chilly hall.

"It's after curfew, you know," the fat lady in the portrait told her dryly in response to being so rudely awakened.

Hermione made no reply, instead setting off down the cold hall, a scowl creasing her brows.

The anger had soon worn off and as a vivid image of Lucius performing that Unforgivable curse made itself very visible in her head, Hermione crumpled to the ground against an unfamiliar wall.

Strangely enough, she found that lying on the stone floor in the pitch black had a calming effect and soon her ragged breathing had slowed and tears no longer threatened to impair her vision. Breathing out a shaky sigh, she rolled onto her back and stared at where she imagined the ceiling should be. She wondered what Draco was doing. It seemed very unlikely that he'd have the same dream as her again so she settled for imagining him, lying warm and peaceful in a bed adorned with the Slytherin colours.

"Hmm," she sighed, smiling as imaginary-Draco's eyes flickered open and he smiled back at her.

"Hermione?"

She sat up, squinting into a sudden burst of light.

"Oh," breathed the newcomer. "Thank goodness it's you."

"Draco?"

"Yes."

He sat down beside her and whispered to his wand. Immediately, the light was gone and the two were in darkness again.

"Why are you here?"

Draco seemed to move closer to her for she could now feel a warm presence to her left. "I imagine the same reason as you."

Hermione froze. "Did you have a dream then?"

"Yes," he replied. "About you actually." He seemed to add this last bit hesitantly.

"You were in my dream too," she admitted. "And your father."

"Was he threatening you? Did he almost kill you?"

"Yes."

Draco seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Then I must have had the same dream as you."

"I suppose." She made a spontaneous decision do dive into the deep end. "Did you dream about… under the tree, too?"

"I did."

The silence seemed to stretch on forever, however it wasn't entirely awkward. In fact, it was somewhat companionable.

"Hermione?" His heart caught in his throat as he realised what he planned to do. He moaned internally, cursing his retched spontaneity but at the same time congratulating himself on acting on what he thought was right.

But she'd interrupted him before he could continue: "Did you mean what you said, under the tree, just before your father came?"

"Yes, with all of my heart," he replied, turning his head towards her. A soft waft of breath across his face told that she had turned to him.

"Well," she whispered, "I think I do too."

A smile spread across Draco's face, every one of his internal organs dancing around inside of him in excitement. It was easily the happiest moment of his life so far and he felt like bolting down the hall, dancing on the tables and singing from the rooftops. Instead he took his opportunity and ran with it, holding his breath, gently taking Hermione in his arms and pulling her to him into a tight embrace. As he felt her arms circle around his neck and her head tuck into his shoulder, he breathed again in relief.

**A/N: **Well, this is quite a long one but I don't think it's as good as it could be. I actually had a good idea last night but I forgot it so now I'm back to square one. I hope you like it anyway and remember, reviews make me happy, and if I'm happy, I write faster! Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **Nope nope not mine

Harry and Ron looked up from their game of chess as Hermione practically skipped into the common room.

"Good afternoon Ron, Harry," she beamed, flopping down onto a nearby couch with her heavy book bag.

"Blimey, you must've had a good day," observed Ron with raised eyebrows.

"Hmm. I did, I guess. Didn't you?"

Ron grimaced. "Snape gave us detention… _again_."

"We didn't even do anything!" Harry protested, scowling at the neat row of white pawns on his side of the board.

"Mm," Hermione agreed airily. "Professor Snape can be a tad unfair when it comes to dealing out punishments."

"A _tad_? Merlin, Hermione! He took twenty points from Neville just because he coughed!"

Harry nodded fiercely in agreement. "Of course, Malfoy and his cronies never get punished.

Hermione's eyes flickered at the mention of Draco. "It's not his fault that Snape favours him, you know Harry. Maybe he's actually a nice person but hanging around those Slytherins all day has just made him look bad!"

Both boys looked up, staring at their friend. She ducked her head, realizing what she'd just done.

"Did you really just defend _Malfoy_? The most despicable excuse for a wizard in Hogwarts?" Ron demanded, his ears flaming red in anger but his eyes confused.

"Maybe he'd not all he seems, that's all I'm saying," she said quietly, standing quickly and hauling her bag onto her shoulder. "Anyway, I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

The boys watched Hermione's back retreating up into the fifth year girls' dormitory before Ron spoke again.

"Do you reckon she's forgotten we haven't had dinner yet?"

oOo

"Very strange indeed," Lucius mused. It had been quite a pleasing shock to him when news of his son and an acquaintance of Potter was brought forth to him from one of the loyal seventh year Slytherins currently at Hogwarts. The letter itself was strewn carelessly on the desk in his study but the contents were being mulled over quite thoroughly in Draco's father's mind. "I believe this can be used to our advantage."

Severus Snape nodded slowly from the armchair in the Malfoy Manors main sitting room, clearly still trying to get his head around the fact that a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, a _Malfoy_ Slytherin, no less, were involved with each other. _Intimately _involved. "I agree with what you are saying, Lucius," Snape said, hesitantly, "but perhaps it is not wise to interfere with Granger, especially as school is in and the Dark Lord knows nothing about your plans. He would be most displeased if you were to disrupt planning he may have of his own."

Lucius frowned, pondering Severus' words. It made sense, but why pass up such a perfect opportunity as this?

"It is simple, Severus. It's completely foolproof and it seems that my son has already gone to great lengths in order for this plan to be devised. After all, why on earth would he _want_ to have anything to do with a _mudblood_?"

"I've no idea, Lucius, but-"

"The Dark Lord will be most grateful when we serve Potter up to him on a platter, so to speak. And all we need to do is get this Granger girl…"

oOo

The Gryffindor table seemed so much quieter and emptier without Hermione there. Draco sighed and turned back to his food.

"Why so dull, Draco?" Blaise drawled, reaching for another slice of meat. Crabbe and Goyle appeared to sit forward in their seats as they eagerly awaited the blonde's reply.

"Tired, that's all. Actually, I might go to bed early. Goodnight all."

It seemed that a dozen heads turned to watch him as Draco made his way out of the hall but he hardly noticed. Thoughts of Hermione filled his head and he wondered where she could be. He felt a strange need to be close to her pulling on his chest and as he lost himself in his thoughts, he noticed that his legs seemed to be taking him in a completely different direction to that that he had implied to his friends back at dinner. Wandering up the stairs towards where he knew the Gryffindor tower lay gave him a sense of freedom that he hadn't felt in a long time but he hesitantly decided that it wasn't a good idea to lurk around as the other member of the Golden trio would be up soon and no doubt they'd want to know why he was up there. With a faint sigh he headed back downstairs, towards the dungeons, feeling the need to run to Hermione greaten with every step.

oOo

She'd tried to sleep but it had proved impossible with everything whirling in her head. What made it even harder was the fact that a strong pulling sensation had seized her chest and she was fighting to keep from letting her unconscious mind take her to where she knew Draco would be. This fact provoked even more thoughts.

She clapped her hands over her face and tried to simplify everything in her overworked brain to make some sort of sense out of the mass of information. She and Draco had shared two dreams, yes. She felt like she had to find Draco almost every moment that he wasn't within her sight and when he was, she had to check to make sure. She could always feel faint traces of someone else's emotions under her own, yes, and, of course, she had felt her feelings for the boy grow stronger than ever over the past few weeks. It had to be a bonding spell.

Hermione nodded her head firmly. A simple spell could be used to confirm her diagnosis and coincidentally she had read all about it just a few weeks previously in a book that Mrs Weasley had sent her as a birthday gift. It was lucky that the bonding spell she suspected had been used was so simple as it would be easier to undo than a more complex spell.

Hopping confidently out of bed, a slight smile now gracing her features, Hermione dug through the pile of books under her bed to find the copy of that bonding book she was sure she'd stowed there.

"Hmm," she sighed in content as she held it up. Thanking goodness that she'd marked the page she needed, Hermione flipped open the book and pulled out her wand, pointing it at her left arm.

"_Ostendo sum totus vinculum_," she whispered and a gold, almost transparent bond revealed itself to her, tied to her arm at one end like a rope while the length of it trailed out of the dorm, all the way to where, she imagined, Draco was. A sudden screech stopped her in her tracks as she made to follow the bond to wherever it might take her before it disappeared after the few seconds that the spell lasted.

A large eagle owl was hunched over the windowsill, a letter tightly tied to its leg.

_Hermione,_

_Please meet me on the edge of the Forbidden Forest where the large oak is immediately._

_Sincerely,_

_Draco Malfoy_

She'd never seen Draco's writing before but the script neatly scrawled in black ink was tight and formal, as one would imagine a Malfoy's writing to be.

Slipping on a heavy cloak over her robes, Hermione hurried out into the school halls to meet with the boy she'd fallen for.

oOo

Lucius smirked as he spotted the lone figure hurrying towards him in the dim lighting of the evening. This was too easy. He raised his wand, preparing to capture the oblivious girl.

oOo

Harry and Ron picked silently at their apple sponge cake, uncomfortably aware of Hermione's empty place.

"Why are you two so glum tonight?" Ginny asked, raising her eyebrows at her brother.

"I don't know," Ron answered. "Maybe because Hermione's in love with Malfoy?"

"I don't think she's in_ love_, Ron. Maybe just… very dangerously in like?" Harry shrugged and raised his fork halfway to his mouth before giving up and dropping it back down again with a sigh.

"I don't think that you two should be prying into Hermione's love life if she doesn't want you to, especially if you're just going to criticize her choices and make her feel bad. No wonder she didn't come to dinner," the youngest Weasley huffed, glaring at the two boys. "If you said anything mean to her, and I think you have, _don't you dare roll your eyes at me Ronald Weasley_, you need to apologize. Now would do."

Ron looked at Harry. Harry looked at his plate.

Neville leaned into them. "I think she means you need to go and apologize, _now_."

Ron stood abruptly and began to climb off the bench with his green-eyed friend hot on his heels. "Yeah. Right. See you lot later, yeah?"

oOo

Draco lay facedown on his bed, dismally breathing in his own scent. Where was Hermione? He hated to think of her being sick, perhaps lying in the hospital wing without him there to comfort her but when he remembered the strange rope of almost transparent gold that had briefly flickered around his wrist just minutes ago, he had a feeling that she was fine, however far away.

Rolling over, he noticed how bland the ceiling was. He thought about sticking a picture of Hermione up there but then decided against it; after all, he couldn't have all of the fifth year boys knowing that he was madly in love with a Gryffindor.

Everything was so boring, so unexciting since that first night in the kitchen. Books that had once held him captivated for hours could now only hold his attention for little more than a few sentences and his broom that had once been his whole world was now just a stick in the corner that, to him, was no more interesting than a rock in a shoebox, if not less.

Just as he was hauling himself to his feet with the intention of starting on his transfiguration homework, a sudden wave of panic and fear hit him, swelling up from the place in his heart where foreign emotions had begun to make themselves known in the past few weeks. He had a strong suspicion that he'd been bound to Hermione and that these emotions were hers and, going on that instinct he grabbed his cloak and ran and fast as his legs cold carry him out of the castle.

oOo

**A/N:** Guess what? There's this brilliant little button just below here and if you press it and write someting nice you'll make my day! Thaks everyone for reading I hope you like it!


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **I wish it was mine... but it's not.

Hermione groggily opened one eye, hastily closing it again when she realized that she was definitely not in Hogwarts anymore. Contemplating trying to sink into the floor to die, she lay still and strained her ears for sounds and was rewarded.

"Now we've just got to wait for Potter to show up," a voice muttered and several others laughed.

"This is too easy," one commented.

How could she have been so _stupid_! Hermione fumed at herself. Why on earth would Draco have asked to meet her at the Forbidden Forest so close to curfew? Especially when it was a well-known fact, at least in the Gryffindor house, that Voldemort was back in action. And now Harry and Ron might get caught and killed. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_!

Finding her arms tied together tightly behind her back, she didn't have a hope of finding her wand, especially since it was almost a certainty that they would have taken it. Sure enough, upon opening her eyes again, the wand was sitting on a low-set nearby coffee table that looked like it'd seen better days. In fact, the whole room, large as it was, looked rather worse for wear. The floorboards were rough and the varnish had long ago worn off. Peeling wallpaper that appeared to have had numerous bowls of chicken soup thrown at it adorned the walls and the only window in the room was boarded up thickly so that no light from the outside world could light the room. Instead, dim white light shone from a bare bulb set in the middle of the ceiling, directly above Hermione.

The voices, she realized for the first time, had fallen silent.

"I think she's awake," one whispered but was answered with only a sharp tapping noise.

Following the voice, Hermione found the source. Three black-cloaked figures sat on rickety dining chairs, the only furniture in the room apart from the table, in the corner furthest away from the door set in the west of the room.

Straining against her bindings, Hermione managed to roll over onto her stomach and from there, struggle up into a kneeling position. The three figures stared at her.

"What do you want from me?" she asked them with as much force as she could gather.

The figures began to chuckle and chatter. "We don't want anything from _you_, mudblood. You're just the bait and if you don't shut up, you'll be a very pained and unconscious bait."

"Harry won't fall for this, you know. He doesn't even know that I left Hogwarts."

The chuckling very suddenly stopped and the figures were deathly quiet as they stared towards the doorway. Hermione reluctantly turned to find another figure in the doorway. However, unlike the others, this figure stood tall and regal, as if he truly believed that he was a king or such.

"Ah. Miss… Grunger?" the figure asked coolly with a hint of amusement in his voice from the doorway.

"My name," she growled, "is Hermione Granger. And I would like to be returned to my school right this instant!"

"Right now," the figure responded as superiorly he strode inside, "I don't care what you would _like _to do, or, in fact, what your name is. You, little mudblood, are just bait."

Hit with a strong invisible force that flew from the man's wand, Hermione was knocked rather unceremoniously back to the floor.

oOo

"What are you saying, Malfoy?"

"I'm saying, Weasley, that Hermione has been kidnapped, and I think I know where she is," Draco told him desperately for the seventeenth time. He'd almost knocked them over as he left the castle and on a spur-of-the-moment decision, he'd invited them along to find their friend.

"But-"

"She went this way!" A sudden force seemed to pull Draco towards the Forbidden Forest and, when they saw the disrupted earth just behind the large oak and Weasley fell quiet, he knew that he was right. But the force didn't stop pulling him there.

oOo

"Is the portkey ready for when he arrives?" The regal figure was pacing, obviously impatient.

"Yes, Mr Malfoy, sir," one of the others replied, holding up an empty rusty metal photo frame.

"He won't come, Malfoy," Hermione spat from the sitting position she'd worked herself into some twenty minutes earlier. "He's not stupid."

"I'm growing weary of you and your comments, Mudblood," Lucius drawled. "I don't want to kill you as it may interfere with my plans but, if I have to, I will. There are plenty more students that could be bait. Like that blood-traitor, what's his name? Oh yes: Weasley. Perhaps you've heard of him?"

She only scowled in return and looked pointedly at her knees.

"I take that as a yes."

The room was silent for some ten minutes until yet another cloaked figure rushed to the doorway. "Mr Malfoy? Someone is approaching."

"Excellent! Looks like Potter gave in after all," Lucius said in his usual tone of cool confidence and slight amusement.

The figure in the doorway hurried back outside, only to return within seconds.

"Mr Malfoy? It's not Potter. It's your son."

oOo

Draco glared intently at the man standing in the doorway of the rundown house, praying to Merlin that his two reluctant companions could not be seen from their place in the bushes.

"I want to see my father. How many times do I have to tell you?" Draco said, managing to maintain a cold, emotionless exterior while on the inside he was seething.

"Your father you say?" replied the man for the third time.

"Get out of my way!"

Draco stormed past the man, into the house. It was soon evident that the inside of the place was no better than the outside with floorboards worn down to little thicker than paper over what could easily have been four hundred years and crumbling plaster on the walls, covered in some sort of yellowing wallpaper.

A muffled voice caught his attention and he hurried towards the door at the end of the corridor.

oOo

Hermione didn't know whether to laugh or cry when Draco burst into the room, his eyes resting on first the gathering of figures then on her.

"What are you doing, Father?" he demanded, strolling casually towards his father but stopping when he was next to the girl on the floor.

"Get out, Draco. This is no place for you to be right now."

"What about her?" he retorted, pointing at Hermione.

Lucius' eyes flickered to the girl hunched at his son's side but quickly resumed their hold on Draco. "She is none of your business."

"She is all of my business!"

The man lowered his hood to reveal long white blonde hair, ties back with a black ribbon. "What, my son, are you implying?"

"Let her go."

The figures, still seated in the corner, snorted in laughter while Lucius stared down the blonde teen.

"Why should I?"

Hermione struggled against her bindings in frustration. Draco noticed and pointed his wand at her arms, freeing them.

"You're not taking her, Draco. It will spoil our plans."

"I will do what I please, Lucius," his voice was ice but when he turned his eyes on her, she could only see the desperate urging for her to run.

She willingly obliged, grabbing her wand from the table and sprinting for the door only to be hit with another binding spell halfway.

Lucius turned cold eyes and wand onto his son. "Would you like to join her?"

"_Expelliarmus_!"

**A/N:** Hello! Just wanted to thank **KK1999**, **pstibbons**, **easytarget80** and **Hermione's BOY** for reviewing! Also, **I need help**! Would you prefer if Harry and Ron defeated Lucius and co. or if they all get caught and served up to Voldy (don't worry, it'll turn out ok)? I'm having trouble deciding and I'd love it if you could tell me what you want to happen. Also, any other ideas you have for this story would be most gratefully accepted!! Thanks again to everyone for reading and reviewing... now... review: )


End file.
